


Children of Embla

by Rigil_Kentauris



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Court Politics, Emblian Royal Court, Emperor of Embla, Gen, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, Sadness, Terrible Families, Zacharias' mother is in this but i have no clue what character tag to use for that, headcanons in full effect, however also canon compliant, tbh there is not much canon to work with so.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 13:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12133074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigil_Kentauris/pseuds/Rigil_Kentauris
Summary: The Emblian royal family hates him. You can't bring yourself to. But the child is a threat, and threats have to be dealt with.





	Children of Embla

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was doing [some theorizing about Zacharias being biracial](https://summoner-kentauris.tumblr.com/post/165479455666/headcanon-biracialzacharias2017-the-facts) when I realized he probably wasn't a proper heir to the throne, he being Veronica's older sibling, and she being born to the Emperor's first wife, and his mother, of course, getting chucked in jail to die. And I figure...that banishment could not have been pretty. Especially cause he was a child.  
> 

You wonder if he knows you don’t hate him. The guards throw him and his mother down onto the marble in front of the throne. He doesn’t waste any of his time glaring at you, like some others do. He only crawls over to his mother, and checks to see if she’s okay.

The rest of the court watches impassively as he wraps one of his mother’s thin, starved arms around his shoulders, and helps her to her feet.

Your councilors drone on about the charges. Most are made up. Possibly, all of them are. A decade ago, you would have checked, and hacked apart anyone who dared to malign you. Now, you cough weakly, and the damn man doesn’t even bother halting the procession of words.

You are still the emperor. They’ll see.

“…espionage, assisting the enemy, conspiring against the state, and high treason,” the man finishes, and clasps his hands behind his back.

Everyone looks at you. Gauging your reaction. Fan shift in the stifling air. Knights sit suffering silently in their armor. The child, meanwhile, frets over the bruising on his mother’s arms, the patches on her scalp where hair is falling out, the scabs caused by one too many nights sleeping on cold stone in the dungeons. The court might as well not be there. She smiles softly at him. Pulls him into a hug. Smooths his shock white hair down. He wears it long, like you used to.

The councilor shoots a glance past you, towards the empress. She nods. Bartley shuffles from the back of the crowd. The heavy, black armor clinks as he moves. The knobbled, black hilt of his large silver broadsword shows over his dull pauldrons.

So, that's how this is going to be.

“The state recommends execution,” the councilor says evenly.

His mother holds him a little tighter.

“The council agrees,” the empresses says in a calm, ringing tone that casts echoes through the chamber. The bolder of the courtiers cast quick glances over at the hand she lays on her stomach. You can’t blame her. She’s behaving like a true Emblian ought to.

So is the child. He wiggles free from his mother’s embrace, and finally turns to face to court at large. There is fury in his eyes, and in the small fists he makes with his hands. The entirety of the Emblian royal family is in attendance. He faces them all down, standing protectively in front of his mother. No fear for himself. Only fury at the thought of harm coming to his people.

All of Embla could have been his people, and they would have been the better for it.

Bartley takes another step forward, breaking through the edge of the assembly. He puts a hand on his sword.

“No,” you say quietly, rasping on the remains of a cough in your throat.

Bartley freezes midstep. The fans all stop.

“What?” says the councilor, mouth dropping open.

The surprise in the air tastes almost like your enemies' fear used to.

“No,” you repeat, accepting that the Emblian penchant for stupidity means you’ll have to say it again anyway.

The councilor looks over at the empress. She moves her hand to your shoulder and squeezes gently. Her confusion can be handled later. More important is the small step back the child has taken. Apprehension has broken through the mask of rage he’d adopted, only a short second of nervousness. A short second is an eternity in the Emblian court. Understanding catches on in a wave – _ah, the emperor must have something more severe in mind._ Ha. They understand nothing.

And even if they could understand…the child they see is not the one you see. A baby, barely old enough to smile and already entranced by the act of it, being passed from her arms to yours, beaming and grabbing hold of a loose strand of your hair. A toddler learning how to walk, casting free from his mother’s arms and going to the one other place he felt safe, wobbling his way over to you. Learning how to say your name. Learning how to say his. A child in those precious few years before anyone knew about him. Things had changed after that. They had to.

The councilors should have let the issue sit a few years. If they were smart, they would have waited until you could look at him and see the challenge he posed to everything Embla was, rather than the first child who’d ever called you _father._

“The child will be banished from the realm,” you say. Hushed murmurs amongst the nobility. Barely contained silence from the royal family.

“But-” A royal breaks out, a cousin, or a distant nephew, maybe.

“The child,” you repeat, dropping your voice to a whisper, knowing you can’t manage a shouted declaration, “will be banished.”

They recover fast, the lot of them. They’ll talk about it for months on end, the rumors will never cease, quite possibly there'll be discussion of deposition, but in the here and now, they are obedient.

“And the mother?” the councilor says.

“Execution,” you affirm.

The councilor mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like _good._ You hearing isn’t what it once was.

“We didn’t do anything!” the child interrupts suddenly. He sounds exactly like you did, at that age. You wonder if the court knew it, before today. You didn’t.

No one in the court bothers to answer his protests except you, and you don’t know if he’s savvy enough, attentive enough, aware enough of how much trouble he’s in to catch it. You make a slight wave of your hand towards Bartley, and he halts.

The child isn’t crying. Good.

The court waits for you to say something. You wait for the child to say something. He looks around, seeing for the first time how many people are here to see him dead. He’s a Emblian royal. The sight of his enemies should center him. There is no question of it.

When it does, you’re proud of him anyway. He speaks again and his voice is as level and as measured as can be expected, under the circumstances.

“The charges are false,” he announces, the forced formality sounding strange coming from his small form. “I declare…the right of…of…”

He’s stumbling, looking for words and a way out that doesn’t exist. His mother couldn’t have taught him everything he needed to know about Emblian court life. She’d never known enough herself.

“The right of…?” the empress asks, in an act of gracious mercy.

He’s breaking under the glares of the most powerful in Embla. His eyes are growing wet. He’s starting to tremble. It’s no failing on his part. That’d he’d lasted so long…and they wanted to execute him.

Perhaps, though, it was the most intelligent idea the royal family has had yet. They’d made an enemy of him long ago.

“Of…” he says, clearly fighting the need to stare down at the ground.

“I accept,” his mother breaks in, the words sighed out, worn, weary. She looks up at you, moves as if she is made of brittle glass. “We accept.”

The child whirls around, the court forgotten again. “Mother?” he says, voice breaking. “You-”

“They’ll kill you,” she says simply. Her eyes aren’t full of hatred, or sadness, or betrayal. They aren’t filled with very much. She regards you with no energy left in her to accept what’s happening, and none to reject it. You aren’t sure if she’s talking to him, or to you. You’re not sure you want to know.

The court can’t witness you looking away, so you disguise it as a nod at the guards.

_“No,”_ the child whispers. He darts to block them, puts his fists up and drops into the fighting style that Emblian peasants use. Your fault. You should have taught him lancework. You should have ordered someone teach him.

He has poor situational awareness, or else he let himself be distracted. Bartley picks him up before he has a chance to react. The guards haul his mother up.

He screams, and strains against Bartley’s armored arms. His mother doesn’t appear to have the strength for walking, so they strong-arm her.

_“NO!”_ the child screams again, flailing in Bartley’s arms. His struggles are uncoordinated for a moment, then he smacks a hand against the sharp pointed center of the visor. His breath catches, and he grabs at the edge. He flings the visor open and goes for Bartley’s eyes and then it’s both of them shouting, Bartley in pain and the child for his mother. Bartley drops him and he dashes across the marble.

The sound of bows being drawn remains intimately familiar, even though you’ve not been on a battlefield in years.

“Wait,” you say.

The creaking of bow sounds stops. The child reaches his mother, clinging to her, crying in a manner very unbefitting of an Emblian royal. You mentally dare someone to tell him to stop.

“She’ll return to prison,” you say.

A compromise, for the child.

If he appreciates it, he doesn’t show it. When several new guards cautiously approach and restrain the child, he starts up his screaming again. When the guards finally remove his mother from the court, he falls silent except for a few suppressed sniffles.

He mutters something that causes the guards carrying him to break rhythm.

“Tell me,” you tell him, knowing he’ll answer.

He looks up, his white hair falling over half his face, anger and something darker twisting his features up. He looks so much like you.

“I’ll kill you,” he says, his voice low and rough and not his own.

He is so much like you.

The court recoils. The royal family doesn’t. They recognize the voice, you think. The thing that curls around in their ears and _whispers._ You feel their fear of the child for the first time since they discovered him. They understand the enemy they’ve made.

Did his mother tell him what he is? Did she know?

You wave one of your personal guards over.

“Have him sent to Askr,” you say, too quietly for anyone but she and the empress to hear. The empress smiles reflexively. She knows what the Emblians are. She assumes she knows what you’re doing.

In truth, you picked it because he’ll be safer there. If Embla couldn’t take it under your rule, they won’t be able to under hers.

And if he happens to damage Askr in the meantime, then it will only serve as a mark of his Emblian heritage.

One day, he’ll be able to return with his victories in hand.

You don’t hate him. No, when the guards carry him out, and he snarls furiously, and kicks one so bad the _snap_ of a broken nose carries across the room, you feel a flash of something that could have been love, once upon a time.

But you’re Emblian, as is he. So, you’ll settle for hoping that one day, he’ll realize you cared.

**Author's Note:**

> the working title for this was _zachy has a shitty family_. for the record, i don't listen to embla's lies. zachy's dad is horrible, and i am v. glad the askrans were nice and supportive of zacharuno
> 
> as a side note, i have no clue when he would learn how to use a lance, what and with the whole court despising him and what have you. i imagine he picked it up in askr, and took to it quick enough to teach sharena when she was old enough.


End file.
